Talk:Seriation (archaeology)

Seriation is a standard method of dating in North American archaeology.

As far as I know, it is also a standard method of dating in South American, African, European, Chinese, Mongolian and every other type of archaeology. Why specify North American??Eclecticat 12:56, 15 December 2006 (UTC)
 * Indeed, and the best method of dating in the Eastern Mediterranean pre-600 BC (or 700 if you're dealing with Lydia), but after the PPN ofc. Sir William Matthew Flinders Petrie, AKA TheArchaeologist Say Herro 01:53, 9 March 2011 (UTC)

Some issues
Why is the original data in "Example 2" already ordered around the diagonal? There are several merit and loss functions (measure of effectivness, neighbourhood stresses), describing the goodness of the result; in fact, a main problem of seriation is, that there may be several different permutations of similar goodness. However, these functions are not mentioned in the article?! Further, using Correspondence Analysis implies a gradient in the data - no matter, whether this gradient dominates the inherent structure or not (or is present at all). Other algorithms, such as the Bond Energy Algorithm do not imply such rather rigid assumptions (check the Documentation for the R package, mentioned in the article, for a summary). Speaking of assumptions, the abundance of types might not have been Gaussian but also "battle ship"-like shaped. --46.115.25.220 (talk) 20:10, 26 February 2012 (UTC)

Another issue
The reference to Renfrew and Bahn 1996 in Example 1 isn't correct. Renfrew and Bahn uses a very different image. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 192.38.32.9 (talk) 08:35, 8 May 2015 (UTC)

Related AfD
Please see Articles for deletion/Archaeological sequence, where a discussion is taking place that includes the possibility of merging here. —David Eppstein (talk) 00:07, 8 August 2016 (UTC)

Contextual and frequency seriation redacted to just frequency
While the source for the existence of two different variants of seriation is accurate. the authors of the source, Renfrew and Bahn, published a 7th edition of there textbook which no longer refers to two different seriation variants. Even the seriation of grave designs (which was previously referred to has an example of Contextual seriation) now refers to it has an example of frequency seriation completely removing any mention of contextual seriation.

It is possible that both terms were combined to mean the same thing. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Brooklyngardner0203 (talk • contribs) 00:04, 15 November 2016 (UTC)